Short hops and hard knocks with Red Sox beat writer Ian Browne.

Pedroia healthy, happy upon return

It was pretty clear that Dustin Pedroia had no ill effects from the left wrist he strained on Tuesday. After making his return to the lineup, the little second baseman was clearly in a good mood in the clubhouse.

As John Lackey was holding court across the way, Pedroia couldn’t resist doing some chirping.

“He would have signed for five years at the league minimum to come here and not to have to face me [anymore],” Pedroia said.

Lackey was swift with his rebuttal, clearly re-playing a scene that the two players have had at times when the media has not been in the clubhouse.

“I’m scared of singles to right,” chuckled Lackey. “He’s been saying that for two weeks. Don’t give him credit for that.”

In truth, the humor that Pedroia displayed was only another example of what a non-issue his wrist is. The Red Sox gave him three days off because it’s Spring Training, making it a perfect time to be conservative with a nagging injury. Pedroia went 1-for-4 on the day.

“I got on the ground a few times and dove, so it was fine,” Pedroia said. “Swinging, I was fine. My first at-bat, I was just getting my timing back. He kind of blew the ball by me a little bit. But my next three at-bats were good, hit the ball on the barrel, so that’s the only thing I was trying to do today, make sure it felt great and see some pitches.”

Pedroia felt that his last at-bat, when he flew out, was probably his best of the day.

“My last at-bat, that was good. I felt good,” Pedroia said. “He was throwing me some pretty good pitches on the corners and I was fouling them off and it was good. I was seeing a lot of pitches. I saw a lot all day which was good.”

In other news, Jeremy Hermida left the game with minor soreness in his right hamstring.

“It just didn’t seem like a good thing to keep him in the game,” said Red Sox manager Terry Francona. “He just came up and he said, ‘I feel it.’ I said, ‘that’s enough.”

Hermida didn’t seem the least bit concerned about the ailment after the game.

One pitcher who isn’t quite in sync at the moment is reliever Manny Delcarmen, who has been battling his mechanics for a couple of weeks. The righty got two outs and didn’t give up any runs on Saturday, but he’s not quite there yet.

With that in mind, the Red Sox will pitch Declarmen for a couple of innings in a more controlled environment on Monday, in a Minor League game.

“That’s still a work in progress,” Francona said. “I think we’re going to take him down to the minor league side on Monday and give him a couple, try to get him enough reps where [he’s more comfortable]. Still watching his warm-ups, he’s not driving the ball downhill yet. We’ve got to stay on that.”

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3 Comments

The Sox are going to kick butt this year. They are just holding back a little because it is Spring. Trust me on this.
Besides, I have been reading the Baseball Prospectus and I have learned that hits, RBI, home runs and all those old-fashioned baseball things don’t actually win games. You no longer need hits if you have OPS, WAR, park adjusted defensive stats. It’s a whole new game.
I used to watch the games to get a feel for how the team was doing, but that’s not necessary any more. I’ve got this new book. The only problem is, I had to take an accounting class and actuarial lessons to figure out what in the nine hells all those numbers are about. Now I can do long division, fractions, decimals, trig, calculus, nuclear astrophysics, string theory, yarn theory, and work an abacus.
The SOX RULE!!!!!

Waiter, tell Arnie to send out some of that alphabt soup that he’s been having–I’ll have some also, please. Feel free to put a happy pill in it…
But mak sur Arni lvs th “E’s” out of our alphabt soup. Th Rd Sox had too many “E’s” in that stat column…And th Rd Sox still cannot throw out runnrs…SIGH! GO SOX!

Don’t worry, Greg. Errors mean nothing in the brave new world of Baseball Prospectus. If the Sox make too many errors we will simply park-adjust them away!!! The awesomeness of this new system is beyond words! I’ve learned to calculate how fast Jacoby runs and divide that by the acreage he covers in his new position, left field. Then we multiply the remainder by the sum of the speed of the average baseball hit to left remembering to carry the one, and take a percentage of the balls that drop to the grass inverting the dangling participle. The result is OTD/FP or Outfield Thermo Dynamic Fielding Percent. THAT wins games. Trust me!

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